Mehreen Rizvi-Khursheed

Mehreen Rizvi-Khursheed was born in March 1968 in Lahore, Pakistan and grew up between Saudi Arabia (Dhahran) and Pakistan (Karachi). She graduated high school from Ecole Internationale de Geneve (Geneva) and continued her education in Business Administration at the American College in London. Her post graduate was from the London School of Economics in International Relations. In 1992 she started working at Sotheby’s as an intern in the Islamic Department and soon after progressed on to a full time position within the Finance Department. In 1998 she moved to the Modern Indian Paintings Department as a cataloguer where she introduced Pakistani paintings for the first time. During this time she also researched and organised the first ever international Arab Art auction at Sotheby’s in London (2001). During her career she helped to organise Sotheby’s jewellery talks and courses in Riyadh and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. From 2003 to 2013 Mehreen was the Head of South Asian and Middle Eastern Art at Bonhams. She organised auctions in London, New York and Dubai. Leading Bonhams inaugural sale in Dubai in 2008 which broke 33 artist records and became the first auction where a Middle Eastern artist achieved USD$1 million (Farhad Moshiri’s ‘Eshq’). She also discovered a number of unrecognised Indian paintings, and initiated the unique first sale of Francis Newton Souza Works on Paper. From 2013-2016 Mehreen worked at Frieze art fair, the largest Contemporary art fair as Global VIP liaison for South Asian collectors covering their London and NY fairs. She was the founding member of South Asian Art Acquisition committee at Tate Museum, London, Steering Committee in London for Aga Khan Museum, Toronto. In addition, she is an advisor to Lahore Biennale Foundation and Lahore Literary Festival. She is currently an independent art advisor based in London assisting international collectors in acquiring art works from British, South Asian and the Middle East.